Mexico Weighs Legalizing Cannabis to Counter Drug Violence

Mexico may be next to legalize marijuana in an effort to reduce drug-related violence and trafficking, incoming Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday.

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During an interview with his Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, the minister said that Mexico is “absolutely” considering adopting cannabis legalization in lieu of the failing war on drugs.

"We think it is a very interesting option in the short term for Mexico...We think there are two options: the Canadian model or the Uruguay model,” Ebrard said.

He continued to say, "It doesn't make sense to have a law forbidding the possession or production of cannabis and we have 9,000 people in jail for that, we have a huge amount of violence in the country.

"You spend a huge amount of money (on policing), you cause suffering for a lot of people and it doesn't make sense," said Ebrard.

On Wednesday, Canada became the world’s first major economy — and only the second country in the world, after Uruguay — to legalize the recreational use of cannabis.

Within one day, cannabis demand was outpacing supply and resulted in companies across Canada experiencing shortage or vacancy of the product.

In Canada’s most populated province, Ontario, some 38,000 orders for marijuana — worth about US$574,800 — were registered in the first few hours Wednesday. While in Quebec, another 42,000 orders were processed in-store and online.

Even Canada’s smallest provinces on the Atlantic coast, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, posted huge figures of US$505,824 and US$116,492 in sales, respectively.